The Euthyphro Analysis

“Murder” means, in a legal context, the killing of a human being by a sane and human with malicious intent (precising). In order to truly understand the definition of murder, it must be broken down into the two key components, malice and sanity, that differentiate murder from lesser crimes. First of all, it is important that the perpetrator has malicious intent when killing the victim. If there isn’t any malice involved, the crime is not as severe and would instead be classified as involuntary manslaughter or a different, lesser crime than murder. “Malicious” means malevolent (synonymous). Sanity is the second key component when defining murder and outweighs the presence of malice. The word sanity originally comes from early 15th-century Latin …show more content…
In the story, a slave gets into a fight with another slave and stabs him to death. When Euthyphro’s father finds out what happened, he ties the slave up, throws him in a ditch, and sends for advice on what to do with the slave. During this time, the slave died from lack of food, water, and warmth. Euthyphro believes his father should be prosecuted for murder even though he didn’t mean to kill anyone. Despite Euthyphro’s belief, his father is not guilty of murder because he didn’t intend for the slave to die. Therefore, there is a lack of malice in this killing making it not a murder. In fact, Euthyphro’s father was seeking assistance on how to proceed with the slave which further supports the fact that malice was missing in this crime. This is an example of negligence, not murder, because the malicious intent is missing. Negligence means the stupid and irresponsible act of failing to take care of someone or something properly (persuasive). All in all, there must be malice in the killing for it to be a …show more content…
Euthyphro’s father lacked malice. He didn’t mean to kill the slave, just confine him until Euthyphro’s father knew the correct way to proceed. The slave died accidentally, making his death one of negligence, not murder. In Cody Metzker-Madsen’s case, he lacked the sanity to be held accountable for murder. Although, Dominic Elkins died in a violent way, Cody wasn’t even aware it was his foster brother he was killing. Cody lacks the mental ability to differentiate from his visions and real life. Therefore, he did not commit murder. When all is said and done, without malice or sanity, a killing must be classified as a crime lesser than